“Don’t worry about it, Aunt Melanie. I’ll get it.” I grabbed one of Izzy’s homemade dish towels and mopped up the water. I gestured at the garbage bag. “Want me to take this off, too?”
“Yes, please. It’s just so annoying. I can hardly reach the silly thing, and oh, how it itches already.” She held her leg out stiffly, the heavy boot weighing her down as she clutched at the edge of the counter for balance.
I took the garbage bag off. “Happy to help.” I hung it up to dry in the bathroom shower so she could reuse it later if she needed to. It was obvious that she could use a helping hand, at least as long as she had to wear that clunky walking boot, but she was either too Southern to ask for help or too proud to accept assistance when offered. Or, I reminded myself, she was a grown adult used to taking care of herself and would have the hang of it soon.
My phone beeped again and I glanced at the screen. Huh. That was strange. Another unknown text message. Two back-to-back? Add in the creepy text from this morning, the blue daisies someone had sent me at work, and the mystery chocolates, and this was getting weird.
U busy?
Take a hint, Rodney, I replied.
Who’s Rodney? This is Aiden.
I rolled my eyes. They said that persistence was a virtue, but I preferred people who knew how to read a room. I didn’t bother replying. My phone jingled, announcing an incoming video chat. I declined it, blocked the number, and set the phone to silent. That Rodney, or Aiden, or whatever his name was, needed to learn some manners.
My aunt came out of the bedroom wearing a long black skirt and a bright yellow sleeveless blouse. She was drying her hair with a towel. “I’m going to a gallery opening in Chelsea. Not sure when I’ll be home, but if it’s late, I’ll try not to disturb you.” She ducked into the bathroom, presumably to apply her makeup.
“Sounds like fun.” I’d been on my feet all day. What I wanted most was to go up to the pool on the roof and soak my legs in the water while listening to a true crime podcast. But my time in Williamsburg was swiftly coming to an end, and I was determined to make the most of it. There was plenty of time to rest on the long—forty-two hours to be exact—bus ride home. “Mind if I tag along?”
“I don’t know if it would be any fun for you. Just a bunch of us olds standing around complimenting each other while drinking cheap champagne.”
“You’re not old. And I like art,” I told her. “And cheap champagne.” That last part was mostly a fib. Champagne tickled my nose and made me want to sneeze. I was, however, starting to develop a taste for mimosas. My favorite were the cranberry mimosas they served at the 3rd Street Diner during brunch on the weekends. It paired perfectly with their homemade lemon tarts. But champagne by itself? I could take it or leave it.
“Well then, hurry up and get dressed. I’ve already ordered an Uber.”
“Gimme just a minute,” I replied. A few weeks ago, I’d repurposed a shapeless dress with pink roses on a field of silvery gray I’d found at a nearby secondhand store into a simple yet elegant sundress that fit me perfectly. It was a challenge, finding clothes I liked that flattered my shape. Luckily, I enjoyed sewing and had made most of my clothes ever since my grandma taught me how to use a sewing machine.
Plus, the dress paired nicely with my cowboy boots.
The new art gallery was in Chelsea, a small, artsy neighborhood on the west side of Manhattan. Like everything else, most of the art scene had been pushed to the outer boroughs due to soaring rents. It was why Williamsburg had become such a vibrant, thriving community back when it was more affordable. Still, some New Yorkers stubbornly clung to the belief that life didn’t exist outside of Manhattan.
Vickie Marsh had been like that. It was a shame, really, that she had been murdered in Brooklyn. I wondered if in her last moments, she had been disappointed that she had to die somewhere other than her beloved Manhattan. Then again, she hadn’t called out for help, so I doubt she knew what was happening until it was too late. At least, I hoped as much. There was something comforting about a quick, painless death.
I know, I know. My mind was wandering down a morbid path when I should have been enjoying an evening out with my aunt. However, the subject of the art show was a woman who dressed up like a ghost and posed in graveyards so she could get the perfect picture in the light of a full moon and then blow the print up beyond life-sized and hang it on the gallery walls. The artist turned out to be a tiny woman. She was a decade or so older than my aunt, and was the center of attention at the crowded gallery.
I hoped that one day I might get my life on a track like that.
Then again, I didn’t see myself being famous anytime soon. I didn’t have any special talents to speak of. I could sew, but I wasn’t into designing haute couture. I was an excellent waitress. I had good coordination and balance—critical skills for anyone in food services—but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life standing on my feet for eight hours a day trying to survive on tips. It was a good job, but it wasn’t what I wanted as a career.
I had zero idea what I wanted to be when I grew up.
Yeah, sure, I was only twenty-three. But I still lived at home. I never went to college. Other than the clothes I’d left in Louisiana, I didn’t really own anything. The car I drove back and forth to work back home was in my dad’s name. I wasn’t even on my own insurance.
“More champagne?” a man asked, oblivious to the fact that I’d barely touched the glass I’d been carrying around all night.
I clutched the stem of the champagne flute, not caring that the drink was now warm and the bubbles had already bubbled themselves out. I wasn’t planning on drinking it anyway. I just felt silly being the only person in the room without a drink in my hand, and after the six hundredth offer, I caved to peer pressure and accepted one. “Yeah, no. I’m good,” I told him without turning around.
“You sure?”
“I told you, I’m just ducky,” I said as I glanced over my shoulder to look the persistent waiter in the eye. I was prepared to give him some friendly advice, one server to another, about crossing the line from good service to pushy, but the man holding out the glass wasn’t dressed in the black-pants-black-shirt-black-tie outfit the other waiters wore.
Instead, his uniform was dark blue with gold piping down the pant legs with “Private Security” stitched in white lettering on the polyester blend button-down shirt. An oversized flashlight hung from his utility belt, the kind that doubled as a baseball bat in a pinch. The flashlight, not the belt. A gun was clipped to the other side of his belt. The uniform was unfamiliar, but the face of the man wearing it was not.
“Detective Castillo? What are you doing here?”
13
Odessa Dean @OdessaWaiting ∙ July 13
I was today years old when I learned that champagne is rarely ever (never?) “champagne color” #classy #culture #cheapchampagne #bubbleseverywhere
Surprised to see Castillo at the art gallery, I accepted the proffered glass of champagne. I even took a sip out of habit, and the bubbles tickled the back of my nose.
He flashed bright white teeth for a split second before the stone-faced mask slipped back into place effortlessly. “You should really call me Vincent when I’m not on duty.” He looked down at himself, and then shrugged. “Or near enough. Otherwise, it’s weird.”
Vincent Castillo was, above all, a snazzy dresser. As a plainclothes NYPD detective, he could wear pretty much anything he wanted to. He typically straddled the line between professional and business casual with dark, pressed blue jeans, a solid color button-down, and a snappy tailored vest. When he was off work, like when he came over for dinner with Izzy, he lost the vest. The stiff uniform looked out of place on him.
“Did you get a demotion since this morning?” I asked.
Expression not changing, he blinked at me.
“What are you doing working i
n Manhattan?” His precinct was across the river in Brooklyn. And why was he wearing not only a uniform but a private security uniform? It didn’t make sense.
Unless he was working a case.
Maybe even Vickie Marsh’s case.
I looked around the room, but other than my aunt and a few people she had introduced me to tonight, I didn’t recognize anyone. Then again, why would I? I only knew three of Vickie’s friends from the escape room. For all I knew, her family owned the gallery, or he had reason to believe a suspect would be here tonight. Maybe Castillo was here to gather evidence and eavesdrop on conversations. “Are you undercover?” I whispered.
Castillo laughed. Not to sound corny, but he had a really nice laugh. The kind that made everyone around him smile. He brushed his hands down the sides of his shirt. “Do I look inconspicuous in this getup?”
“Well, no,” I admitted. “But let’s be honest. You look like a cop. You look like a cop when you’re picking up a pizza or doing a cannonball into the pool.”
“So?” he asked.
“If you were in normal street clothes, everyone would know that you’re a cop. But no one pays attention to a cop dressed like a security guard. If you’re not undercover, what are you doing here dressed like that?”
“You didn’t think I could afford an apartment in Williamsburg on a cop’s salary, did you? When the minimum wage went up, the price of housing skyrocketed but my paycheck didn’t budge.”
To be honest, I hadn’t thought about it. I’d never been over to his place before and had no idea if he had roommates or not, or if he lived in a bougie building like my aunt or rented a tiny room in a converted brownstone with a shared bathroom at the end of the hall. I guess I had assumed that Castillo had a real job, a grown-up job that covered his bills, and a grown-up apartment to go along with it.
Not that waiting tables wasn’t a real, grown-up job. It just didn’t pay a lot. If it weren’t for tips, I wouldn’t even make minimum wage. It wasn’t easy, mentally or physically. I had to juggle a dozen things at once, all while making sure my customers were happy. It was a respectable job, one I was good at. One I enjoyed.
But being a cop was a whole different level. There were training programs and uniforms and ranks to move through. There were chains of command. There were guns and bulletproof vests. I guess I always figured that any job where people had to follow strict orders and got shot at on occasion came with a nice, fat paycheck.
Guess I was wrong.
If an NYPD detective with several years on the force had to take a second job to make ends meet, I would never make it on my own in NYC. Piney Island, Louisiana, wasn’t exactly the most exciting place on the planet, but at least my parents didn’t charge me rent.
Yet.
“So, you’re a rent-a-cop on the side?”
“Freelance personal protection,” he corrected me. “And yeah. I didn’t realize this was your scene.” He strained his neck to look around at the crowd. “Izzy with you?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I’m here with my aunt. She knows the artist.”
“You seen Izzy today? You asked her to call me?”
“Yeah, she was at work today and I passed her your message. I think she mentioned something about her phone being out of data yesterday, and misplaced her charger today.”
“Oh, really? Then I guess someone else was logged in as her on Twitter an hour ago,” he said.
Gotta love the information age. It didn’t take a cop to stalk someone on the internet. These days, any mildly curious, patient person with a Wi-Fi connection could learn a person’s whole life story, including where they’ve been recently, if they weren’t careful. “She was probably using the Wi-Fi at Untapped,” I said.
“Funny, I stopped by there earlier, and she’d already gone home for the day.”
“What do you want me to tell you? I have no idea where she is.” I also didn’t know what either Castillo or Izzy expected of me. I wasn’t Izzy’s keeper. I didn’t have a clue where she was staying, and even if I did, it was her choice to reach out to Castillo or not. It was none of my business if they were going through a rocky patch.
“Lemme see your phone.” He held out his hand, and I hesitated for a second. He cleared his throat and gave me The Look, the one I think he learned in the police academy, and I unlocked my phone and handed it to him. He tapped away at the screen. I couldn’t see what he was doing but then he held it up to his ear and waited. “Voicemail.”
He handed my phone back to me and I saw a canceled outgoing call to Izzy on the screen. I didn’t know if I should be relieved or annoyed that she hadn’t picked up. I took a big gulp of champagne.
“Odessa, is something the matter?” My aunt clomped toward us, her walking boot practically dragging on the ground. She looked from me to Castillo with a concerned expression. The bags under her eyes had grown darker since we’d left Williamsburg, and even her hair was limp and dull.
“Aunt Melanie, I’d like you to meet my friend Vincent Castillo.”
“Pleased,” she said, offering her hand. It looked frailer than I remembered. Then again, I was used to seeing her hands covered in paint or plaster or chalk, depending on what project she was working on at the moment.
“You about ready to get out of here?” I asked her.
“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly. Besides, you haven’t even finished your champagne.” She glanced down at my full hands. “Neither of them,” she added with a hint of amusement in her voice. Or maybe it was just exhaustion. It was hard to tell when she was this lackluster.
Surprised to see that it was already half-empty, I finished the glass that Castillo had handed to me. My aunt raised one eyebrow. I drained the second glass.
For the record, flat, room-temperature champagne is decidedly not my favorite drink.
I put both empty flutes down on a nearby table.
“Odessa, the art!” my aunt chided me, picking them up.
That’s when I realized that the metal-and-glass contraption I’d mistaken for a tray table was part of the installation. “Yikes.” I took the glasses from her. “I’m gonna go drop these off, and then I’m ready to go. Why don’t you order an Uber?”
Despite her protests, Aunt Melanie looked relieved at the idea of heading home. Between jet lag, the painkillers, and her awkward boot, she had to be drained. “Yes, dear. Nice meeting you, Mr. Castillo.”
“Please, call me Vincent.” He retreated to the corner of the room where he could observe the crowd while remaining relatively inconspicuous.
“Your friend is nice,” my aunt pointed out as we waited on the curb for our car.
“He is,” I agreed. I looked down and was spellbound by the way the sidewalk sparkled in the streetlights. I didn’t know what it was about New York City sidewalks, but half the time, there’s a chalk outline to walk around and the other half, they glittered like they were laced with diamonds.
Or maybe that was the champagne talking.
“And how do you two know each other?”
“He’s dating Izzy.”
“That handsome young man is your friend Izzy’s beau? How is she, by the way? I am awful glad to get my apartment back to myself, but I hate the idea of kicking her out so suddenly.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. I couldn’t say anything about her apparent eagerness to get rid of me without sounding ungrateful. Besides, I had a place to go, and she had a point. It was her apartment. I was just the house sitter. Now that she was home, I wasn’t needed any longer. “Izzy will be just ducky, don’t worry about her.”
The car arrived, and I got in first so Aunt Melanie didn’t have to scootch over the seat.
It was only a thirty-minute car ride to Williamsburg. In rush hour, it would have been quicker—not to mention cheaper—to take the subway, but it was late enough that there was little traffic. I wasn’t sure if my
aunt could navigate stairs in her walking cast anyway, and the elevators in the MTA were hit-or-miss. I couldn’t even be positive that I could manage stairs right now, as I was feeling light-headed from downing so much champagne so quickly.
I leaned my head against the window and watched the lights of Manhattan fly past us, and the next thing I knew, Aunt Melanie was shaking me awake.
* * *
• • •
The next morning, I had a pounding headache and there was a cat asleep on my face. Now I remembered why I disliked champagne. It wasn’t the taste. It was the aftereffects. Even if Rufus had decided to take a catnap somewhere other than curled up on top of me, my mouth would have still felt like it was sprouting fur.
Then again, in hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have drunk two full glasses of the cheap stuff in rapid succession.
I would have loved to pull the blinds, curl up under the blanket, and spend the day on the couch nursing my hangover, but that wasn’t in the cards. For one thing, I’d made plans to meet Izzy and go talk with Amanda to see if she knew anything more about Vickie’s death. For another, I could already hear my aunt clomping around her bedroom.
Aunt Melanie’s apartment was gorgeous. The building was immaculately maintained with all the amenities, from a concierge at the front door to a pool on the roof and a small gym in the basement. It was pet-friendly. The elevator worked. The courtyard was clean and quiet. The units, at least my aunt’s, were huge with enormous windows and eleventy-foot-tall ceilings.
The only problem was that my aunt had stuffed her apartment with everything she could get her hands on. The seven-foot-tall giraffe in the living room was just the tip of her collection iceberg. There was a life-sized chimpanzee statue, about a thousand books, and more tchotchkes than I could count. Even the bathroom was crammed full of unique pieces—all in a hippo theme.
The collection was fun. Whimsical. Unique. And took up a ton of space. When I wanted to get my sewing machine out, I had to shuffle a taxidermied raccoon and a Russian tea set off onto the counter to make room. I’d gotten into the habit of sleeping with a light on so I didn’t crash into something in the dark. It was a good thing that my aunt had plenty of lamps to choose from—including one made of Barbie doll heads, a converted fishbowl complete with plastic goldfish, a tree fashioned from barbed wire and Christmas lights, and a lightsaber-wielding armadillo. The armadillo was fake.
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